I have been traveling the world as a journalist and passionate lover of all things fun for 20 years. I have had weekly columns in USA Today and Investors Business Daily, published thousands of articles in leading magazines from Playboy to Popular Science, and am the author of Getting Into Guinness. I am the Contributing Travel Editor for Cigar Aficionado Magazine, the restaurant columnist for USAToday.com, and am a co-founder of TheAPosition.com, the leading golf travel website. I love every kind of travel, active, cultural and leisurely, and my special areas of expertise are luxury hotels and resorts, golf, skiing, food, wine and spirits. I tweet @TravelFoodGuy

Super Bowl XLVI's Real Winner? Indianapolis!

The site of this year's Super Bowl was within walking distance of many hotels and all of downtown Indy.

Sunday’s Super Bowl was the most watched television event in American history, tuned into by nearly half of all households and at peak time, more than 117,000,000 viewers. Ad rates were $3.5 million per 30 second spot, and while viewers debated who was better, an overweight Volkswagen obsessed dog or Clint Eastwood, the real beneficiary of all that airtime and all those viewers was the city of Indianapolis.

“Ten years from now, I think we will look back on this one single day as the tipping point in tourism and perception for the city,” said Chris Gahl, Vice President of Marketing for the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association.

Several years ago when the city decided to go for the 2011 Game (it ended up with 2012), the bid process required $25 million in non-taxpayer funds, and several big Indy area companies, including Eli Lilly and Cummins, stepped up and provided it in the form of donations. Last weekend paid off that investment handsomely on both sides of Gahl’s equation: Conventions and Visitors.

Leisure travelers were treated to a week of eye opening coverage of the city’s unsung charms on major networks, minor networks, radio and the internet. Establishing shots featured some of the city’s most iconic attractions, including the world’s largest children’s museum, the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the country’s second largest collection of urban monuments after Washington, DC. Sports talk radio hosts on New York’s ultra-popular WFAN seemed to spend as much time discussing how shocked they were by the high quality of their meals (especially at the city’s beloved St. Elmo’s steak house, where Eli Manning fueled up for his Super Bowl victory) as the teams involved. This scenario was repeated all over the country as visiting media, many of them new to the city, were won over.

“We’ve always been a favorite of the sports media because of our many huge events, and some sports reporters come several times a year,” said Gahl. “But to see how surprised and how impressed the mainstream press was with our arts, culture, dining, and hospitality, that’s a real feather in our cap.” I personally was not surprised, since I have had the pleasure of visiting Indy a few times, and last year included it on my list of the nation’s best cities for weekend tourism visits.

The Super Bowl is just the latest in a series of accomplishments for a city that decided to actively tie its fortunes to sports about two decades ago, helping to pioneer the then revolutionary concept of downtown stadiums. As a result, a city that had already hosted the world’s largest one day sporting event, the Indianapolis 500 (over 300,000 spectators), for over a century, added the Pan Am Games, another huge auto race (NASCAR’s Brickyard 400), has hosted the annual NFL combine for 20 years, held golf’s Senior PGA Championship last year, has held the PGA Championship and has the BMW Championship this year, and perhaps most importantly of all, became the only city with a contract to be the recurring host for “March Madness.” The NCAA holds basketball’s Final Four here, for both the Men’s and Women’s tournaments, alternating every two years. Many of these facilities also have public components: you can ride in Indy cars driven by actual Indy 500 race drivers at the track; tour the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum; run on the famed oval as part of the nation’s largest half marathon; visit the NCAA Hall of Champions; take an hour-long tour of Lucas Oil Stadium, the Super Bowl venue, including the field, locker rooms and press box; and much more. The city is also home to NFL and NBA teams, numerous US Olympic Teams including USA Diving, USA Gymnastics and USA Track and Field, which frequently host major championships in these disciplines, as well as the headquarters of the NCAA and thus virtually all college sports. It is the most sports centric city in the nation, if not the world. But as viewers all over the country found out last week, there is a lot more to Indy than sports.

A Super Bowl first, Indy erected a massive "4-lane" zip line ride through the heart of downtown, which proved extremely popular.

While the media exposure surrounding the big game and word of mouth from the 150,000 visitors should help Indy attract more tourists, the city may win even bigger on the convention side, thanks in part to all the experience and infrastructure it has hosting huge, complex events. “About 65% of the ticket holders for this year’s Super Bowl were corporate decision makers,” said Gahl. “And I think our message to them is very clear – if we can host the world’s largest single-day sporting event for over a century, the Final Four regularly, and the Super Bowl –we can handle your convention.”

To make that point, it was a priority Indy get it right, and not end up like the Athens Olympics, perceived as dysfunctional. In this regards, they hit a home run. The entire downtown was cordoned off and turned into a weeklong “fan zone,” complete with the interactive NFL Village and NFL Experience, free concerts, autograph sessions, celebrity sightings, food and beer kiosks, and countless parties, bars, eateries and ad hoc novelties, from the makeshift Bud Light Hotel to the Huddle temporary nightclub. Rolling Stone Magazine and Bacardi threw a party the night before the big game with concerts by four major recording artists, and not to be outdone, Maxim Magazine partnered with Patron Tequila to throw a star studded bash the same night, while Playboy’s famed Super Bowl pre-party was Friday night – all three soirees commanded four figure admission fees. A 4-lane zip line ran over the heart of downtown, and every single spot sold out, although it was open the entire week. Streets were staffed with a sea of uniformed volunteers to answer questions and direct visitors, the city put on 4-hour classes for anyone who might interact with guests to preach “Hoosier Hospitality,” and everything from the jet ways at the airport (a $1.1 billion state of the art facility just over 3 years old) to billboards to free maps was festooned with the game logo and welcomed guests very visibly to the Super Bowl City. When volunteers repeatedly punctuated their advice with “Have a Super Day!” they actually sounded like they meant it.

As a result, everyone I spoke to – even disgruntled Patriots fans on the flight back to Boston – was struck by the city’s perfect execution, Midwestern hospitality, and eminently walkable downtown. “It was the most urban Super Bowl ever,” said Gahl, “and many of our guests never needed to take a cab. They could walk from their hotels to every major Super Bowl attraction, restaurants and the game itself. We had observers from upcoming host venues, New York and New Orleans, and other interested cities, and they were saying ‘what’s in the water here?’ because everyone is so friendly and everything went so smoothly.” My cab driver to the airport added, “The city really pulled out all the stops to make downtown accessible and the center of the action. They did a great job.”

By halftime locals were talking about when, not if, the NFL would return to Indy with another Super Bowl, and based on the city’s stellar performance and its track record with other athletic organizations, I’d guess sooner rather than later.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

I went to school in Indy. There truly is not much to do there and lacks any evidence of a food/media culture. Everyone craves St. Elmos but it is as good as any steakhouse in chicagoland, and there are plenty. Fortunately, global warming caused people to enjoy the city and the outdoor events, but on an average climate basis it would have been miserable to walk around that city in – degrees.

Sure Chicago has great steakhouses. So do NYC, LA and Vegas. For the most part, they cost twice as much as St. Elmos. Sorry if you were bored, but as I documented, there is plenty for the the average vistor to do – and lots of people, myself included, live in much smaller places than Indy yet still manage to find meaning in our lives.

The next visit has to include the Indianapolis Art Museum – it ain’t your granma’s museum! I volunteer to be your docent! Eli Lilly donated the grounds and some beautiful houses. The gardens are lush and wind around the acreage – a real must-see – and I’m not even an Indpls native!

Sorry, I have to ask. When did you go to school here? In the 90s? There are hundreds of excellent local eateries (many of which have been featured on the food-network) and even gourmet restaurants (a sushi restaurant with Nobu trained chefs as an example). Not to mention gourmet fish markets, butcher shops and meat markets, and within the last two years or so, very very good micro breweries. As far as nothing to do, what do you want to do? Every single night of the week there are live bands somewhere, museums, live sporting events, over 100 miles of biking and walking trails, one of the city parks in the nation (the 1400 acre Eagle Creek park), the zoo (not great but its there), White River state park, golfing, fishing, boating, a world class library, shopping malls, a great underground music and art scene, etc. Not to mention the festivals, art fairs, and stuff during the warmer months. Then within an hour in any direction there are artist colonies, skiiing or tubing in the winter, nationally ranked mountain bike trails, rafting, and all softs of other things. If you never leave IUPUI or Butler campus, nope, you wont find much to do. I’ve lived here and in chicago and honestly the only difference is chicago is bigger and more expensive. And has a higher crime rate.

I was born and raised in downtown Indy, moved to Brazil, South america, and now live in the heart of the city once again. I love our city. It boasts every cuisine you could ask for and has plenty of things for tourist to do within walking distance. The true proof of our city’s accessible amenities is word of mouth reports! Newspapers, Magazines, and News channels all over the nation are singing the praises of Indianapolis. Great job INDY!!

Sounds like “indy” is bent that Chicago has not hosted the Super Bowl. Indianapolis doesn’t pretend to be Chicago or New York or other cities of their ilk. My brother lives in Chicago and having truly experienced both cities, I’ll take Indianapolis any day. We have just as much culture, fabulous cuisine and activities as Chicago – but without the hassle or the price tag. Those of us that choose to live and work here enjoy the opportunities the city has to offer and are humbled by our country roots. Indianapolis has a lot to be proud of and this past week has been as much an inspiration to the people of Indianapolis as it appears to have been to some media/sports visitors have been writing about us!

Was the cost of your meals and hotel all it cost the city of Indianapolis to have this ridiculously misguided puff piece released? Listen to NPR’s planet money podcast if you’re interested in some actual information in regards to the cost of football fanaticism to the city of Indianapolis.

You can get all your info on the world from the radio and believe eveyrthing you hear. Im a journalist so I try to get mine in person. An owner of a 100+ year old restruanrt, one of the most popualr in town, told me they had literally never been busier, 20-25% more profitable than during the Indy 500 or Final Four. My cab driver had gotten the limo driving job just for those couple of weeks when he needed extra work, couldnt have otherwise. Thousands of part-time jobs were created, tourism and retail revenues soared and all that was just during the last few weeks. The lasting economic impact in terms of both convention and tourist spending will be high. Did it cost the city real dollars to attarct this? Absolutely. It’s something called economic development and every city does it, though not always well and often by giving tax breaks to big banks. Does America pay a high price for all its sports fanaticsim? Absolutely. But until we stop watching football, they will hold the Super Bowl somewhere, and free meals or no, I saw how good a job Indy did. You apparently did not. Keep listening to the radio.